Elgin

Elgin stands on the River Lossie in the fertile lands of Moray. Its cathedral, begun in 1224 as the seat of the bishops of Moray, became one of Scotland's great medieval churches. The burgh and its cathedral precinct formed a centre of religious and commercial life between the Highlands and the Moray Firth.

In 1390 Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan and remembered as the Wolf of Badenoch, burned Elgin, its cathedral and the houses of its clergy during a dispute with Bishop Alexander Bur. The damaged church was rebuilt in the years that followed, but the Reformation brought an end to cathedral worship in 1560. Its roof and fabric subsequently deteriorated, leaving the imposing ruins of the building once praised as the glory of the kingdom.